Being Gay : A Matter Of Love Vs. Love

When police found out that the Stonewall Inn had been operating without a liquor license, however, they took the liberty of entering the bar and arresting the employees on shift that night as well as harassing dozens of patrons. In addition to the employees arrested, anyone not wearing at least three articles of “gender-appropriate” clothing was arrested in compliance with the law at the time. Other customers refused to stand by idly, watching their friends and allies be beaten and taken away, and began throwing glass bottles, bricks, trash, and whatever they could find at the police officers. So used to passive and acquiescent behavior from LGBT+ people, police officers were angered and called for reinforcements to barricade inside the bar. The night ended with rioters setting the bar on fire. In total, about 400 people rioted on that first night. In the next five days people continued to

It was not uncommon for the New York Police Department Morals Task Force to raid gay bars. In fact, during the two decades leading up to the Stonewall Riots, the raids were more commonplace than naught. Many have speculated as to why the raids were common – some saying it was because of the Italian Mafia’s involvement in owning those establishments, and consequently forgetting to bribe the local police; others believe it to be based in bias, hatred, and ignorance of people different from oneself. In the Stonewall Inn’s specific case, it could have been a combination of both. The Inn, which was owned by the Mafia, was actually a bottle club, meaning they did not own a liquor license. You had to be a member to drink there. While these various theories are most likely true, as far as ancillary causes, the fact remains that there was an

With reference to the Stonewall riots of 1969, it is important to understand that the riot by the Lesbian and Gay Rights Movement came at a time when the civil rights movement was in its high peak. The riots for equality by the Gay and Lesbian groups and activists came at a time when Americans minority groups were fighting for identity in the typical American culture. Then again, it is significant to note that the trends that surround the Stonewall riots were the intense hatred towards the homosexual individuals that had hit the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. The Gay and Lesbian people had to seek solace in Homosexual perceived bars and night clubs as they feared for their life due to their ‘awkward’ sexual orientation at the time (Ruta, 2013). Similarly, another trend that characterized the Stonewall riot was the Cold War policies that had earmarked Homosexual individuals and organization as security threats. With the rising tension due to the cold war, the United States government had blacklisted Gay and Lesbian groups and individuals as an easy target for blackmail by the Communist groups. As a result, they faced constant harassment from police in the 1940s all through to the Stonewall riot in 1969. The uprising is as a result of the civil rights movement that allowed for many minorities and interest groups to come out and fight for their rights.

Two sources, “Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth” by Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Suzanna M. Crage, and Stonewall: the Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution by David Carter, are used to form a proper analysis. Carter effectively reflects on the monumental spirit of the riots, while Armstrong and Crage focused on the lack of lasting significance of the riots, which directly refutes the beliefs of Carter.

In the book Gay Rights it states, “In 1969, the year the stonewall rebellion occurred, there were only 50 gays and lesbian organizations with a few thousands of members in the entire country.” It means that they were finally taking a stand and ready to fight back. What happened in the Stonewall is in June 28 1969 there was a gay club called the Stonewall. Police started to attack the gay and lesbians. Then after that the crowd of people started to throw bottles at the police. If I was there I would have done so much worse than that. There is one of the main events in the 1960’s Gay

“Sex was something mysterious which happened to married couples and Homosexuality was never mentioned; my mother told me my father did not believe it existed at all ‘until he joined the army’. As a child, I was warned about talking to ‘strange men’, without any real idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it was all about.” Mike Newman, who was a child during the 1950s America recalls how homosexuality was perceived during the post-World War II era (F). This sexual oppression was not only in Newman’s household, but in almost everyone’s. While the civil rights movement began in the mid-1950s and ended late 1960s, the LGBT community started to come out of the closet slowly. The gay rights movement stemmed from the civil rights movement

Despite the incessant raiding of gay bars by police in the 1960s, Stonewall Inn was the only place that subdued the officers. Since the Stonewall Inn was the major place for male prostitutes, representative of the transgender community, drag queens, and effeminate young men, they attracted a very huge crowd that provoke

The Stonewall Inn was a gay bar in New York City and it was the starting place of the Gay Liberation Movement. In the 1970s gay men and lesbians started wanting equality because they faced lots of legal discrimination. They didn’t have equal rights because they couldn’t even have consensual sex with their partners and it was illegal in almost all states. So in 1969 police raided the Stonewall Inn and gay men fought the police and proclaimed “Gay Power.” This event caused riots between the New York City police and all the gay residents.

Crime groups used the fragile times and division of the people to solicit money from gay clientele, and by the mid 60’s the Genovese crime family controlled more than half of the Greenwich Village gay bar including Stonewall Inn. Like some of the other inns Stonewall was a registered “bottle bar” or a bar that did not require a liquor license because its audience were to bring their own liquor. To keep the Inns false exclusivity and privacy the Genovese family would bribe the Sixth Precinct to keep quiet about what happens or more over what doesn’t happen at the Inn. Without the police the crime family could cut costs and blackmail those of a higher status for more money to keep their secret. Stonewall eventually became a very important part of Greenwich culture being cheap, large, and a place for runaway and homeless gay youth. Nevertheless, riots were still a part of the Greenwich lifestyle, usually the cops would tip off Mafia-ran bars, but in the case of the Stonewall Inn time wasn’t on their

The conflict was between the police of New York City and Gay Right actives outside of the Stonewall Inn, a bar were the gay rights movement was born. In 1969, homosexual relationships was illegal in New York City. The gay bars were where gay men and lesbians could socialize in safe place away from the public harassment, but many of those bars were subject to regular police harassment. A gathering location for many young gay men, lesbians, and transgender individual was Stonewall Inn, in Greenwich Village, which was an establishment which would run without a liquor

These kind of raids were not uncommon but this night would be different from the others. The patrons were so tired of getting harassed and treated badly that they began to resist and grew aggressive when the police started to arrest people. Over the next few nights there were a series of more demonstrations riots which came to be collectively known at the Stonewall Riots. The actions of the police on that night were the last straw for a group of people who had constantly dealt with oppression and marginalization and marked a change in the way that gay people across the country handled their situation. They were finished with the attitude of the 1960s that called for peaceful resistance against their lack of freedom and negative treatment; they took the fight for equal treatment into their own hands

(Although gay people still had to be aware of policemen using the entrapment strategy where the cops dressed in drag to arrest them.) Still, when hotels, motels, and movies had forbidden entrance to gay people, they were forced to create spaces for themselves in society. This isolation increased the gay community’s angry sentiment, and they saw many ways to rebel. Essentially, they had their natural born rights, but they did not have the public freedoms that non gay people seemed to have. With the emergence of many riots across the United States, either civil rights movement for African Americans or the anti-democratic electoral process headed by youth anti-war activists, the Stonewall Riots arose during a time of change and forward thinking in America regarding one’s

In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people

Until the last half of the 20th century, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals were victims of discrimination in American society and in statutory laws, which limited their basic rights. On the night of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, and arrested three drag queens by using excessive force. Bar patrons and spectators, tired of police oppression, stood up and fought back. This was the first major protest based on equal rights for homosexuals. The Stonewall Riots became a turning point for the homosexual community in the United States sparking the beginning of the gay rights movement, and encouraged lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual, or "LGBT," to fight for their rights.

The gay liberation movement occurred in Greenwich Village, New York. In June 1969, police invaded the Stone Wall Inn, a bar for gays. The gay people at the club became angered by the police actions, because they felt that it was unprovoked harassment. They fought for several nights, refusing to have the bar closed. This incident, generally referred to as Stonewall, has been noted as the beginning of the awakening of gays into personal and sexual liberation.